ATT call for postponement of Making Tax Digital
Amid concerns about the timeline for the Government’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) project, the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) has called on HMRC to postpone the implementation of quarterly digital reporting by at least a year. This is after it was announced that the consultation process would be delayed until after the EU referendum.
It was expected that the first of five consultations was to be launched early last month but the EU referendum of 23rd June has now delayed this. All five consultations are therefore likely to be issued all at once rather than in stages so as to enable HMRC to commence its public testing phase by April 2017. This will reduce the time that interested parties have to respond to each consultation which is unacceptable given that MTD represents one of the biggest changes to the way in which taxpayers engage with the Revenue for over 70 years. The ATT are quite naturally concerned that the current timetable for introducing MTD is “overly-ambitious”.
It is estimated that approximately 75% of all businesses and 82% of sole traders will have to change their record keeping systems to comply with the Government’s proposals and with £1.3 billion of taxpayers’ money already earmarked for spending on MTD “it is imperative that it is handled correctly as the risk of embarrassment to both HMRC and the Government if this goes wrong is huge”, says Yvette Nunn of the ATT.
Based upon the assumption that responses to all five consultations would have to be made by the end of September, then the ATT believe that HMRC would find it impossible to properly take into account the views and recommendations of all parties within just six months. This would be most unsatisfactory and will have a damaging effect on the design of the digital system and its effectiveness.
Ms Nunn added, “Rushing ahead with this project without allowing adequate time for the consultation and testing phase could put at risk the many potential benefits for taxpayers and HMRC which greater digital working can bring. That would be a tremendous mistake and in a worst case scenario could result in a system that was not fit for purpose.“
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